Strategie di adattamento e patrimonio critico / Adaptive strategies and critical heritage

The paper focuses on cultural heritage as a significant component of discourse on the ability or, conversely, the difficulty of adapting to crises—whether they stem from emergencies caused by disasters of any kind or from other major changes, or are connected to new challenges (energy, climate, digital). Emergencies and reconstructions, innovations and adaptations necessarily confront historical areas, collective memories, and layered places. However, cultural heritage requires separate reflection beyond the specific issues posed by historical areas. The paper discusses by an historical perspective the changes in its concept, its initial elaboration and ri-eleboration during or after huge crises, and current adaptations to new societal developments. It highlights how discontinuities of various kinds and attributable to different causes make the thread of inherited transmission more complex, tangled, or broken by generating the need of a critical heritage.